Officers and Members

Officers

President: Eleanor Silverman
Vice-President: Carter Hudgins
Past President: Betsy Page Sigman
Chair, Communications and Advocacy Committee: Amy McPhaul Johnston
Chair, Finance and Development Committee: To be named
Chair, Student Professional Development Committee: David Hood

Members

Michael Bracken, '86 BS Mathematics, is a retired aerospace and defense executive. Prior to retirement he was a senior vice president at the Northrop Grumman Corporation Mission Systems Sector. Prior to Northrop Grumman he was the Director of Programs at L-3 Communications Storm Control Systems. Michael started his career at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and contributed to several earth science missions as a software engineer, systems engineer and project manager. He received an MS in Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University (1991). As an undergraduate he was a four-year, full scholarship athlete on the Tribe men’s basketball team. He is also a member of the Kappa Sigma social fraternity. He and his wife Jennifer have three children, Christopher, David, and Alison. Alison (’18) is the third generation of the Bracken family to attend �鶹�ƽ��. Michael is a past president of the Graduate Studies Advisory Board. He is currently a board member, and past chairman, of the �鶹�ƽ�� Athletic Foundation.

Jim David, '04 MA History, '10 PhD History, is a managing director at Hamilton Place Strategies (HPS), a public affairs consultancy in Washington D.C. He advises a broad range of clients on strategic communications matters including public policy initiatives, regulatory issues, mergers and acquisitions, and crises. Prior to joining HPS, he was a managing director at Kekst and Company in New York, where he advised Fortune 500 companies, leading alternative investment managers, and other clients on a variety of complex communications issues. Jim is the author of Dunmore’s New World (University of Virginia Press, 2013), a book about political culture in the era of the American Revolution focused on the life of the last royal governor of Virginia. His research has been supported by a number of fellowships and awards, including from the Harvard University International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, the Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.

David K. Hood, '90 BS Chemistry, '92 MA Chemistry, '96 PhD Applied Science, was a Senior Group Leader (Head of Technology for Diagnostic Films (Advanced Materials) and Global R&D Operational Excellence) at Ashland. He has more than 20 years of professional experience in the specialty chemical industry. After completing a �鶹�ƽ��ing Assistant Professor position in the Department of Chemistry at �鶹�ƽ��, he joined International Specialty Products (ISP). Throughout his career, he has enjoyed technical team building, leading global teams responsible for technology expansion, new business development programs including structuring complex R&D agreements and relationships as well as due diligence processes for corporate M&A activities. His varied technical interests include functional polymeric materials (natural and synthetic), printing technologies, technical coatings, radiation dosimetry and polymer architecture/design. He holds more than 25 US Patents and has (co)authored more than 30 technical articles. In 2004, he was awarded the Thomas Alva Edison Award (Consumer Division) by the R&D Council of New Jersey. He and his wife, Christina, reside in Virginia.

Carter L. Hudgins, '84 PhD History, is Director Emeritus of Clemson University’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. Prior to joining the Clemson faculty, Hudgins was Hofer Distinguished Professor of Early American Culture and Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington where he served multiple terms as chairperson of the Department of Historic Preservation and the Department of History and American Studies. A native of Franklin, Virginia, Hudgins completed a BA at the University of Richmond and an MA at Wake Forest University prior to receiving the PhD in early American history and culture from �鶹�ƽ��. Trained as an historian and archaeologist, Hudgins has archaeological experience on seventeenth and eighteenth-century sites in Virginia, North Carolina, Brazil, and Ireland. He served as executive director of Historic Charleston Foundation from 1993 to 2000. Six Virginia governors appointed Hudgins to boards that set policy for the Commonwealth in the areas of historic preservation, libraries, and archives. He is a former officer of the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, Preservation Virginia, US/ICOMOS, the Vernacular Architecture Forum, and is the author of essays on historic preservation policy and the archaeology and architecture of early Virginia. He received the Frances Edmunds Medal from Historic Charleston Foundation and South Carolina Governor’s Award for significant achievement in historic preservation in 2019.

Amy McPhaul Johnston, '87 BA English and Government, '90 MA Education, has a distinguished career that spans both the pharmaceutical and entrepreneurial sectors. She has cultivated an impressive 30-year career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, including a 15-year tenure at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Transitioning later to consulting, Amy has led cross-functional teams focused on commercial biotech strategies, ensuring compliance with FDA regulations. She has managed projects for top-tier pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, AbbVie, NovoNordisk, Eli Lilly, and AstraZeneca, offering key insights and guidance at the board level. Her teams have been instrumental in data analytics, providing valuable benchmark comparisons to drive product strategy, brand messaging, and sales training across diverse therapeutic areas, including rare diseases and oncology. Collaborating with multiple departments like sales, legal, and regulatory, Amy has significantly contributed to accelerated business growth and increased shareholder value on a global scale. Currently, Amy resides in central Pennsylvania with her teenage daughter.

Rick Kuhn, '76 BA Psychology, '77 MBA, is a computer scientist and affiliate faculty member at the Virginia Tech National Security Institute, following 40 years at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He has co-authored three books and more than 150 papers on information security, empirical studies of software failure, and combinatorial methods in software testing, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received the IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastructure Award (shared with Ferraiolo and Sandhu) for development of the world's most widely used cybersecurity access control method, role based access control (RBAC), in addition to a Gold medal for scientific/technical achievement for RBAC research from the US Department of Commerce, and the Excellence in Technology Transfer award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium. His work in combinatorial test methods also received a US Dept of Commerce Silver award for scientific/technical achievement and an Excellence in Technology Transfer award. He previously served as manager of the Committee on Applications and Technology of the President's Information Infrastructure Task Force (1994-1995), and as manager of the Software Quality Group at NIST. Before joining NIST in 1984, he worked as a software developer with NCR Corporation and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He received an MS in Computer Science from the University of Maryland College Park.

Margaret Cabell Metts, ’90 BS Math, ’91 MA Chemistry, is the Medical Director of Wilson Radiation Oncology and Chair of the Oncology Program at Wilson Medical Center. Under her leadership, her practice has earned accreditation with the American College of Radiation Oncology. She has spearheaded many projects including establishing a Patient Navigation Program at Wilson Medical Center, earning and maintaining accreditation through the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer, and creating a non-profit program to assist local cancer patients. Dr. Metts has been a physician champion in establishing an affiliation with the Duke Cancer Network at Wilson Medical Center. She earned her medical degree at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She is engaged in the community of Wilson, North Carolina, serving on several community boards, consistently taking on leadership roles. She and her husband, Jobe, have four children, Carrington ’20 BS Physics and Hispanic Studies ’21 MSBA, McGuire, Cabell, and Mattie.

George Miller, '67 BS Physics, '69 MS Physics, '72 PhD Physics, retired in December 2011 as the tenth Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a position he assumed in March 2006 after a distinguished career in national security work at the Laboratory. Throughout his nearly 40-year career at the Laboratory, Dr. Miller tackled a variety of management and scientific challenges in the interest of national security, particularly nuclear weapons. Dr. Miller continues to provide advice to the Laboratory and various parts of the United States government on matters of national security. He holds memberships in the American Physical Society and the Sigma Pi Sigma - National Physics Honor Society. Dr. Miller and his wife, Sue, live in Livermore, California.

Cynthia C. Morton, '77 BS Biology, is the William Lambert Richardson Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Director of Cytogenetics at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Past Director of the Biomedical Research Institute at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. She received her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. Dr. Morton is a past member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Medical Genetics where she served as Secretary, Treasurer and Chair of the Accreditation Committee. She was Chair of the Molecular Genetic Pathology Policy and Exam Committees of the American Board of Medical Genetics and the American Board of Pathology. She served as a member and Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and as a member and Chair of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine. Currently she is a member of the Counsel of Scientific Trustees of the Hearing Health Foundation and Chair of the Advisory Committee of the Veteran's Administration Genomic Medicine Program. Dr. Morton is the past Editor of The American Journal of Human Genetics, and is the President-elect of the American Society of Human Genetics. As a student at �鶹�ƽ��, she was active in music, as well as a resident advisor, orientation aide, and member of Kappa Kappa Gamma social sorority, Phi Sigma, Delta Omicron and Mortar Board.

David Opie, '88 MS Physics, '91 PhD Physics, is Senior Vice President, Research and Development, at Noxilizer, Inc., has extensive medical device development experience with both start-ups and industry leaders, including Johnson & Johnson and Cook Medical. He has numerous filed and issued patents and has commercialized technologies that are used in life-saving applications. He has experience with cardiovascular and urological implants, equipment design and manufacturing, as well as drug delivery market segments. Dr. Opie has a thorough knowledge of product invention, of Good Laboratory Practices, Good Manufacturing Practices, and design control and product development procedures. Dr. Opie holds a B.A. in Physics from the University of Delaware.

Betsy Page Sigman, '78 BA Government, is an expert in data analytics, electronic commerce and social media, and information systems. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science (with concentrations in American Government, Research Methods, and Demography) from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She served for two years as the Director of Assessment and Analytics and holds the title Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita at the McDonough School of Business, where she taught for twenty-two years. She also served as the departmental advisor for McDonough's Operations and Information Management (later Operations and Analytics) major. Dr. Sigman was on the Faculty Advisory Board of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) and was involved with Georgetown Entrepreneurship. She has been frequently quoted or interviewed on social media and business issues, and her articles have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, Business Week, and Fortune, among other outlets. She has co-authored three editions of the book, Splunk Essentials. Always interested in marketing and public opinion research, she worked at the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (UNC-Chapel Hill) and the Social Science Data Center (now Roper Center, Univ. of Conn.). At the marketing research firm, Decision/Making/Information (later Wirthlin Worldwide, then part of Harris), she served as a Senior Project Director. At the U.S. Bureau of the Census, she was a statistician in the Center for Survey Methods Research, held the post of Special Assistant to the Director for Field Operations, and won the Sustained Superior Performance Award. Sigman is also a recipient of the 2007 Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business Joseph F. LeMoine Award for Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching Excellence and the 2009 Dean’s Distinguished Service Award. In 2008, she was named the Faculty Beta Gamma Sigma Honorary Award winner. At the 2016 Decision Sciences Institute Annual Meeting, Dr. Sigman’s paper on “Visualization of Twitter Data in the Classroom” won DSI's Innovation Award. The paper was published in the Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education. In her free time, she loves to travel to see the world and her and her husband's many grandchildren.

Eleanor K. Silverman, '85 BA Mathematics,has spent over 40 years in the space program. She has hands on experience designing, building, testing, and launching flight hardware and software systems for a variety of spacecraft, most notably as chief engineer for the laser altimeter on the Ice Clouds and Land Elevation Satellite. She ultimately moved into program management including directing the spacecraft development and operations for NASA's Earth Science program. She has contributed to both the civil/science and national/defense space programs, as well as managing the development of spacecraft for NOAA, USGS, and international partnerships. She retired from Gov service in 2024 and currently works in the Space Systems Sector at Northrop Grumman. Eleanor received an MS in Applied Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering and a DSc in Mechanical Engineering/Aeronautics and Astronautics from George Washington University. As an undergraduate at �鶹�ƽ��, she was a member of the swim team, studied piano, and spent her junior year at Essex University in the U.K. She and her husband and children live in Maryland.

Gail Williams Wertz, '66 BS Biology, '20 MA Anthropology, has been a university professor engaged in basic biomedical research for her entire career, starting at UNC Medical School and most recently at UVA Medical School, where she was elected Professor Emerita in 2014. Her expertise is the molecular mechanisms of replication of RNA viruses and her laboratory developed the methodology for genetic engineering and attenuation of negative strand RNA viruses. This work provided a platform for developing novel vaccines against major human pathogens. She’s served on numerous advisory boards including the NIH NIAID Advisory Council, the CDC Basic Science Advisory Board and was president of the American Society for Virology. Her research has been supported by 36 years of continuous funding from NIH, two NIH MERIT Awards, a Bristol Myers Squibb "Freedom to Discover" Award, and the RSV Lifetime Achievement Award. She and her husband, L. Andrew Ball (D.Phil. Oxford, UK), are active in land conservancy and historic preservation. They raise grass-fed black Angus cattle on two historic farms in King George County, VA.

Student Members

Morgan Brittan, PhD student in American Studies

Emeriti Board Members

Debra (Debbie) Allison, '77 BS Chemistry
James Baroody, '68 MS Physics
John D. Burton, '89 MA History, '96 PhD History
Diane Alleva Cáceres, '87 BA Economics, '89 MA Government
Kathryn Caggiano, '90 BS Mathematics
D. Nelson Daniel, '90 BS Geology & Economics
Jeffrey Deitrich, '04 BA Political Science
Kurt Erskine, '92 BA Public Policy
Mike Hoak, '02 MA History
Ann L. Koch, '83 BA Religion
Sherry Manning, '67 MS Math
Peter Martin, '71 MS Physics, '72 PhD Physics
Larry McEnerney, '76 BA English & History
Ronald J. Monark, '61 BA Economics
Brian J. Morra, '78 BA History
Judy Ridner, '88 MA History, '94 PhD History
Lee Roberts, '70 MS Physics, '74 PhD Physics
Maciek Sasinowski, '93 MS Physics, '95 PhD Physics
Robert Saunders, '00 BS Physics
Kumiko (Jean) Takeuchi, '76 MA Chemistry
Jeffrey Voas, '86 MS Computer Science, '90 PhD Computer Science
Edwin Watson II, '68 BA History, '70 MA History